by Band Back Together | Sep 14, 2010 | Coping With Losing A Partner, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Loss, Parent Loss, Partner/Spouse Loss |
part 2
14
SEP
maybe.
so.
he’s dead.
dead..wtf? my life my future, my love? what the hell just happened?
i sit there, in the ER. all i can think about is my son, at home. not knowing. HE DIDN’T KNOW..his dad is DEAD!!!
friends have started to arrive at the ER, (friends….i got friends)…i don’t know how they knew (susan? yes)…and i have to comfort them, but my son is at home. TAKE ME HOME!!
so, of the friends who have arrived, i take sheri and david. david drives me home, sheri following in my car.
as we drive up..i see the kid in the driveway. HOW???HOW????
i get out of the car, and he starts to scream. i will NEVER forget that howl. later, i will learn that the same howl emanated from me in the ER..i don’t remember it. but the kid’s…i’ll never forget that sound as long as i live. the sound of a heart breaking, both of our hearts, broken.
prior to leaving the ER i had told them i was going to go get my son and could they please clean everything up so i could have him see his dad. they did great…when we got there…well, tom looked as good as a new corpse could. we cried, and held him, and talked to him and cried and cried and cried….
and there were more people there by that time. because, because my husband and i are so lucky to have the friends we do, did. when we were on the way to the hospital, my friend susan, who i called, called her husband, and the word started to spread.
and some came to the hospital, but most people went to another friends house. and when the word came that tom was dead, well…all those gathered headed for my house. and the word kept going out. and by the time my son and i got back home there were 40 people in the house . and an hour later 80. and food, like the loaves and fishes…..
i can’t write anymore tonight.
maybe a little more. this is MY story, our story, but grief.. god, grief is binding. and there is so much neo-natal and child grief on this board that i cannot read it because it KILLS me. but i know it, just differently.and i pray that someone else will come on with a story like mine because i need to be identified with. if you’re reading this and not posting…please do.
PLEASE.
by Band Back Together | Sep 10, 2010 | Coping With Losing A Partner, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Loss, Partner/Spouse Loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder |
i’m thinking i should tell my story.
or attempt to.
i am being nudged because there is a new site coming up and it’s about..READY FOR THIS…grief.
all kinds of grief, the grief spectrum. whatever.
anyway, i know about it. way too much. and i also realize this is an attempt, because it won’t be right.
not that it’ll ever be right, but i figure i’ll have to hone this to make it really readable, or good enough, or…
wtf? good enough? for who?
jesus, it is what it is. i write like i write. i feel what i feel. (sense the anger? i seethe a lot, sometimes it is a murderous rage, often directed at my dead husband. it’s a nice side effect of ptsd. as is depression and drinking and eating too much or too little – done all)
so.
january 21 2006.
i feel my husband get out of bed, roll over. “morning”
..i go back to sleep.
(it’s a saturday morning, it’s 7:30 am..yeah, i go back to sleep! don’t judge)
maybe, MAYBE 5 minutes later i hear my son running down the hall, screaming “daddy fell and there’s blood”.
up like a shot, into the bathroom, where he was feeding the dog. water everywhere. did he slip in the water? “No. i passed out”….
calm me to crazed son ”call 911 and then get me some pants.” (i thought enough to ask for pants. i’m great in a crisis.)
husband not in pain, but says he’s having a hard time breathing. so we sit him up (BTW… we is me and a 13 year old scared shitless piece of love). we wait for the ambulance. it seems like hours..under 5 minutes.
i am CALM. SO CALM. i put on pants, i hold husbands head. i speak soothingly to both my guys. i call neighbor to come over to stay with son while i go to hospital. ambulance comes, and as they get him loaded and i see i can’t go in the ambulance, i grab water and my knitting…and then i BRUSH MY GODDAMED TEETH (WTF? what was i thinking?), because i figure i’ll be at the hospital for a while, and. and. and…i can’t remember if i told him i loved him. (drives me insane to this day)
i called my friend to meet me at hospital and took off. got a call en-route that ambulance was changing hospitals…what? why?….so i pull a u-turn in the middle of the street and head to the 2nd hospital. still..calm enough to call friend and tell her. weird.
(Later i find out that the 2nd hospital was trauma center. great)
when i arrive she is there, we go in. i speak to a nurse who IMMEDIATELY brings us into the ER. at this point….well, the dread is setting in. i breathe, say to susan “this can’t be good”.
AND NOW I NEED A BREAK…saving as draft.
(BTW..it’s been almost 5 years. i still can’t breathe, often, when i tell my story. and now i’m back, 6 days later to, hopefully, finish).
and i walk into the ER room that has doctors hustling and bustling (that sounds like a song from Oklahoma) and all i can see/feel/hear/ KNOW is that there is no life in that room. because, the only life i cared about is not there. the doctors kept working on tom as i held his hand and cried and asked for “a xanax, PLEASE”…, but he was gone, we all knew it. and there was a point when i just asked them when were they going to stop, so i could leave and get my son (my son, our son…how was i going to tell him?) and then they stopped. and called the time. and it was truly over.
(crying again. i wonder when i ever will not cry telling this?)
my husband and i met in 1985, married in 1989 and he died in 2006. our son was 13. my son will be 18 on september 21st, and the pain is still acute for him. but we’re going to get tattoos, SO FUCKING THERE! (tom HATED tattoos…we like them)
i’m older than most of you who will read this. i didn’t know about blogging when tom died, i wish i had. it would have helped.
the only thing i regret about that day, in terms of my choices, was the choice to leave my son at home. it seemed right at the time. i believe it was a mistake; we were without each others most important OTHER person at the worst moment of our lives.
i have never written all of this before, and it is filtered through several years. but, it is exactly how it was, because i will never forget it. and there is more to say about that day, and friends and how to deal with grief, for yourself and others, and i will.
i know i will because now i NEED to.
and i trust that this new site will be a safe place for us all.
